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Islamic state

Students gather to take a group picture during the library repat the University of Mosul in front of the theatre on Feb. 19, 2022.

After years of conflict and rebuilding, Mosul University’s Central Library marks new beginning  

Culture

The library’s reopening on Feb. 19 represents a significant milestone in the return of arts and literature to a city whose culture became a target of the militants. 

Children play in a mud puddle in the section for foreign families at Al-Hol camp in Hasakeh province, Syria on March 31, 2019.

Thousands of children are stranded at a camp in northern Syria. Who will repatriate them?

Displacement
Two women wearing black veils walk outside past a sign with Arabic text.

The women of ISIS are more than just brides

Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) celebrate the defeat of ISIS in Raqqa, Syria.

A Raqqa resident asks why militia had to destroy his city to liberate it

Conflict
A convoy of ISIS fighters and their families begin to depart from the Lebanon-Syria border in Qalamoun, Syria, on Aug. 28, 2017.

The US bombs path of ISIS convoy in Syria after a controversial withdrawal deal

Conflict
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Yazidi rebaptism ceremony in Iraq

Photos: Yazidi women undergo a rebirth ceremony after ISIS enslavement

Conflict

When ISIS invaded northern Iraq, they captured many Yazidi women, forced them to convert to Islam and traded them as sex slaves. The Yazidi community granted photographer Marcio Pimenta rare access to capture moving images of the reintegration process for freed women rejoining the group.

Fighting continues in Syria, where Kurdish troops from the People's Protection Units are facing down ISIS militants in Raqqa, Syria.

Is Syria ‘the war of our time, a humanitarian test of our time?’

Conflict

ISIS militants are being squeezed out of their final strongholds in eastern Syria.

A boy, displaced from fighting in the Islamic State stronghold of Raqqa, walks in the desert near the village of Karama, east of Raqqa, July 1st 2017

What to do with captured women and children of ISIS?

Conflict

With ISIS losing territory in Syria and Iraq, what will happen to their wives and children? We spoke to Borzou Daragahi of BuzzFeed News, who recently reported on meeting some of these women in Syria.

A view of part of western Mosul, Iraq, on May 29.

Were high civilian casualties in Mosul unavoidable?

Conflict

Amnesty International says the US-led coalition may have committed war crimes against civilians when driving ISIS out of Mosul.

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS

Syrian rights monitor says ISIS chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is dead

Conflict

There have been repeated rumors that the ISIS leader is dead, but the Pentagon says it cannot corroborate the reports. Now the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says it’s obtained information from ISIS leaders of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s death.

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